She brushed at her skirt, as if trying to knock away the mud on the hem, and her hand came away with the black dagger tucked in her sleeve. One advantage of that weapon, she reminded herself, was that it didn't sparkle in the torchlight.

Then, with a false smile pasted across her lips, she stepped up to the man in the alleyway. "Where's this room of yours?" she asked. "I'll be glad to get in out of this mist."

"This way," he said, beckoning her into the alley. She smelled cheap oushka on his breath-lots of cheap oushka. Warily, she followed him into the shadows.

"How far is it?" she asked.

He turned abruptly and caught her in his arms. "Right here," he said. He drew her to his chest, breathing great clouds of alcohol and decay in her face, and the grease on his tunic stained her own. His hands slid down, trapping her arms against him.

"Let me go!" she demanded.

"Oh, pretty, now, you were… you were happy enough to come with me when you thought I could put a roof over your head," he said, in a tone that was probably intended as wheedling. "You'll have just as good a time here in the alley."

"Let go!" she shouted.

"Oh, come on," he said. "I live in the Field with the others, and over there we'd have shared…"

She didn't wait to hear any more. He was holding her arms down, so that she couldn't reach up far enough to pull anything from her belt, but she didn't need to; she yanked the dagger down out of her sleeve and slashed.

The knife was really amazingly sharp. She wasn't able to put any real strength into the blow, with her arms almost pinned, but the black blade sliced neatly through the red kilt and into the leg beneath, leaving a dark red line, almost as black in the shadows as the blade that had made it, a line no wider than a hair across the outside of her captor's thigh.

Tabaea felt an odd tingling as the knife cut flesh; her head seemed to swim, as if the alcohol on the man's breath were suddenly affecting her, while at the same time she felt a surge of strength and well-being.

The excitement, she told herself. It was the excitement and fear getting to her. She had never been in a serious fight, nor had she ever cut anyone before.

Even as she thought that, the drunk reacted instinctively, flinging his arms wide and stumbling backward the instant he felt the first cut; that allowed her arm more freedom, and with that odd feeling of strength flooding through her, with that strange light-headedness giving her irrational courage, she thrust with the dagger, plunging the blade deep into the meat of her attacker's thigh.

He gasped, and a sensation of power overwhelmed her as he fell back against the bricks of the Drunken Dragon's wall.

Then she realized she was free, and habit took over; she whirled, clutching the knife, and ran out onto Wall Street, her feet sliding in the muck as she turned the corner. She caught herself with one hand and got upright again, then headed for Grandgate Market at full speed.

Behind her, the man in the red kilt looked down at his leg, at his ruined kilt; the thin line of the initial slash was slowly widening as blood oozed out, but he ignored that.

The stab wound was spilling blood as a burst barrel spills beer. He took a few steps, out to where torchlight turned his tunic from black to brown, his skin from gray to orange, and his entire left leg redder than his veteran's kilt. Drunk as he was, the pain cut through the alcohol.

He tried futilely to wipe away the blood and only opened the gash wider; blood spilled out in a thickening sheet, and the dim knowledge that he was badly, perhaps fatally hurt finally penetrated.

He let out a gurgling squawk and fainted, facedown in the mud.

Tabaea saw none of that as she ran, slipping and stumbling, along Wall Street. She rounded the S-curve where the Field wrapped around the north barracks tower, and from there it was a straight three blocks to the market. The torches of the gate watch glowed before her.

With safety in sight, she allowed herself to slow. She caught her breath and tried to compose herself-and to her own surprise, succeeded quite well.

She was, she realized, completely awake and alert-and at the same time, she felt light-headed, as if she were drunk.

But she had only had the one pint of ale. And she had been exhausted-why else would she have ever considered sleeping in Wall Street Field?

She wasn't exhausted now. She felt fine.

She felt better than fine; she felt strong.

With wonder in her eyes, she looked down at the bloody knife she held.

In the opinion of his fellow guardsmen, Deran Wuller's son was prone to work too hard. He had been known deliberately to volunteer for various duties; he kept his boots polished even when no inspections were anticipated. And when a citizen asked for help-well, any guardsman was required to provide aid, but Deran would do it cheerfully, without griping or delaying or trying to pass the job on to someone else.

If he hadn't been just as eager and cheerful when losing at three-bone, or when helping one of his mates back to barracks after a brawl or a binge, or when dodging the officer of the watch to illicitly collect a few oranges from the groves north of the city, he would have been insufferable. And he had never been known to betray a trust or let down a comrade.

Thus he got along well enough, but got more than his share of odd and unpleasant duties-such as escorting Lieutenant Senden's sister home after she was found drunk and naked in the Wall Street Field.

She had been safely delivered and had even showed signs of sobering up when Deran had departed and headed back toward the north barracks tower. It was well past midnight, perhaps as much as two hours past, when Deran passed the Drunken Dragon and noticed the footprints in the muddy surface of Wall Street.

He did not ordinarily go about staring at the ground, but the mist had turned back to rain, and he had not bothered with a hat or helmet or cloak, so he was hunched forward a little, and so he noticed with mild interest the patterns of footsteps. There were several lines that ran along the middle of the street; that made sense. There were lines running in and out of the Drunken Dragon-mostly out; that, too, made sense, as the Dragon was still open, despite the hour. There were a few lines in and out of the Wall Street Field, each one alone-the Field never slept, as the saying had it, but most of its inhabitants did, so traffic in and out was light and scattered at this time of night.

And there were steps leading in and out of the alley beside the Drunken Dragon. The line coming out was widely spaced and smeared, as if whoever made those marks had been running and slipping.

That was odd.

Most guardsmen, and virtually all citizens, would have shrugged and kept walking. Deran, though, was Deran. He stopped and peered into the shadows of the alley.

Something was lying on the ground in there, and it didn't look like garbage.

If it was someone sleeping there, then whoever it was was fair game for slavers, and Deran should either wake that person up and shoo him across the street to safety, or he should go fetch a slaver and collect a finder's fee, depending on whether he wanted to be benevolent, or to be paid.

If it was anything else…

Well, it bore further investigation, and the light in the alley was terrible. Deran turned back a few steps to the door of the inn and took one of the signboard torches from its bracket.

Being in the city guard did have its little privileges, he thought as he carried the hissing brand over to the mouth of the alley. If an ordinary citizen took down a torch from an open place of business it would be theft and good for a flogging.